


in silence I grieve

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: Persuasion - Jane Austen
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Brother-Sister Relationships, Discovering Someone Else Is Your True Love's Happy Ending, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Lost Love, Male Friendship, Unrequited Love, When Doing The Decent Thing Hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29267700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: After Louisa's fall at Lyme, Benwick speaks before Wentworth does.
Relationships: Anne Elliot/Frederick Wentworth, James Benwick & Captain Harville & Frederick Wentworth, James Benwick/Anne Elliot, Sophia Croft & Frederick Wentworth
Comments: 32
Kudos: 96





	in silence I grieve

**Author's Note:**

> Amarguerite enabled this wild idea disgracefully, I tell you. Disgracefully. :D

Frederick went away because he discovered it was considered a settled thing, that he should marry Louisa Musgrove; and when he returned he discovered not only that Louisa had been taken home to Uppercross by her family, but that James Benwick had contrived to fall in love again. With Anne Elliot.

Frederick did not need to be instructed by James Benwick in Anne Elliot’s many fine qualities. Her gentleness, her sympathy, her practical nature and sensitivity to art and beauty were all well known to him; he had been very angry at her, for a time, of coupling all these excellencies to a want of decision which had caused them both great pain, but now he could appreciate her for who she was. And it was an excellent thing for Benwick to fall in love again: there was no surer cure for his grief, and Anne would have the patience and quick understanding to grasp his situation, and to show him the kindness he deserved. 

Frederick walked up and down the beach with Benwick, listening to him talk - shyly, at first, but then with greater confidence - of Anne.

“- I have formed the intention of - of visiting in the area,” Benwick said, “to see how the Musgroves go on, they invited us most kindly - and I hope to call on Miss Elliot, who is staying with Lady Russell now.”  
  
“Oh!” Frederick said, surprised, and wondered whether to warn Benwick about Lady Russell. “Well, I shall be going to Kellynch Hall, so if you do intend to visit, you must come with me, and stay with my sister and the Admiral.”

He felt strange, when he saw how Benwick’s eyes lit up. He ascribed it to the effects of long travel and insufficient food, and suggested they turn back to the house for dinner.  
  
  
  


The call at Lady Russell’s home was… painful, but not as Frederick had expected it to be. There was no consciousness in Anne’s face or voice when she met him; they might have been nothing but indifferent acquaintances. Her very real pleasure in seeing Benwick, and his in seeing her again, woke strange feelings in Frederick’s breast; he was conscious of a hollowness, where he should have been happy for these two good people to find enjoyment in each other’s company. Had anyone asked him a year ago he would have said Anne Elliot could make any match of her choice, he cared not - and now, knowing her again, he was glad that she seemed so much struck by a good man, a thinking man, someone with a value for her excellence, and many shared interests. Likewise Benwick’s passionate nature was well-balanced by her good sense, and his intellect found an equal in hers. Even if it proved only a friendship, Frederick could not imagine a better choice for either of them. And yet it was hard to be enthusiastic.

Perhaps it was merely the effect of meeting Lady Russell again. Frederick could not say that his opinion of Lady Russell had improved, or that the conversation flowed freely. There was a consciousness in her face as she looked at Anne and Benwick and back at Frederick as if to say, _you see, Captain Wentworth, there was a better man for my goddaughter_. Benwick’s prospects were more or less equal to his own, though his influence was more limited; he had saved as well as Frederick had, and was of what Lady Russell would undoubtedly call _good family_. And he had the intelligence she valued for Anne, at least if Louisa Musgrove had had the right of it.

Frederick swallowed back something bitter, and remained polite for as long as Anne and Benwick had something to talk about.

“You seem out of sorts,” Sophy said, that evening. “What is the matter with you?”

“I hardly know,” Frederick said.

Sophy tilted her head to one side like a little bird and eyed him. “Miss Louisa? They say she should make a full recovery in a year or so.”  
  


“No,” Frederick said. “That is - I feel responsible for her accident -” 

“You should not.”

  
  
“- but -”

  
Frederick stopped mid-sentence and his words hovered in the air. Sophy watched him.

“No,” he said at last. “It’s not that. I hardly know what it is.”

Sophy and the Admiral went to Bath, for the Admiral’s alleged gout. Frederick would be surprised indeed to learn he had gout: an active man, and modest in his diet, though he enjoyed good food and drink as much as the next man. But it served as an excuse, perhaps. Sophy had wanted a child for a long time, and this stretch of time on land might be the most promising they’d ever have. The waters were supposed to be beneficial for all kinds of ailments. Sophy was as close-mouthed as Frederick was himself, and she would never speak her hopes aloud; the Admiral, meanwhile, was perfectly happy to perjure himself to spare his wife’s feelings.

Frederick felt an indescribable pang. A happy marriage, indeed. He hoped to be as lucky, one day. If certainly not with Louisa Musgrove.

The Elliots had gone to Bath, Frederick knew, and Anne had been obliged to follow. Lady Russell had taken her there at Christmas. When he followed his family there, he wondered if he might see her, or if -

He did see her, on his very first day. Escorted by her cousin, and looking remarkably well and bright. The cousin was one of these smooth-talking, fine gentlemen, an expensive London man, and he offered Anne his arm in a way that smacked of possession: Frederick was furious for the space of half a moment, and told himself that it was because he could not see why any soft-handed gentleman could consider himself an equal to Benwick, equally deserving of Anne’s esteem. Anne looked an apology for the ending of their conversation. Frederick looked down at his unnecessary umbrella, returned to him since Mr Walter Elliot was already provided with one, and felt inexplicably very stupid.

He understood - not that, precisely, but something of its kidney - when Benwick visited, at Charles Musgrove’s invitation, and he discovered that Benwick had become very well known among the Uppercross family, and was commonly supposed to have a great interest in Anne Elliot. His instinct, when Mrs Musgrove confided this in him, was to disclaim the possibility. Benwick, so recently grieving, and Anne, so slow to show her affections -

But when he saw them encounter each other, and instantly fall into deep conversation over a new volume of poetry they had both recently read, he could not doubt the light in Anne’s face, or the tenderness in Benwick’s smile.

“I think he will be philosophical enough for my lady Russell, that is for certain,” Henrietta giggled into the bonnet she was trimming, when Benwick escorted Anne home to Camden Place. The other women laughed. Frederick strayed to the window, and pretended to have seen some acquaintance, that he might not be obliged to take a part in the conversation.

He might never speak, Frederick thought, she might yet refuse him, but -

Was it the part of a friend to wish such happenings on two people so worthy of every joy?

“If this carries on,” Sophy said at dinner, noting Frederick’s poor appetite, “ _you_ will need to take the waters, not I.”

Frederick returned some undistinguished response, and did not meet Sophy’s eyes.

Harville came to Bath with a miniature of James Benwick. It had been taken at the Cape for Fanny Harville and kept among her things, for Benwick couldn’t bear to see it and had no use for a portrait of himself, and now Benwick had asked for it, to give to Anne. Harville had undertaken to have it set - and most willingly, he said, for as deeply as he grieved his sister’s loss nobody could fail to find Miss Elliot the most gentle-hearted and agreeable of women.

  
“Miss - _Anne_ Elliot,” Frederick said, reeling somewhat from the idea that Benwick felt confident enough in his suit to have the portrait set.

“Aye,” Harville said. “I haven’t met the other one. I hear she’s passing unpleasant.”

Frederick smiled unwillingly. “Disagreeable, certainly - but imperious, not pettish.”

Harville screwed up his face, but said nothing. A faint melancholy touched his eyes, and he looked down at the portrait again, and the melancholy grew more pronounced.

“I would not want him to mourn forever,” Harville said, almost to himself. “Fanny would not have wanted him to mourn forever. She would have liked Anne, I think, very much.”

  
  
Everyone liked Anne very much, Frederick thought, except for her wretched family, who didn’t know how to value what they had.

It was at this point, he felt, that in another life he might have offered to undertake the commission for Harville. Not that Harville expected it, but that he could have done it; that he could have spared Harville this.

Frederick found himself mute.

“I begin to be convinced you are not sleeping,” Sophy observed at the breakfast table.

“I find Bath damnably noisy,” Frederick said, and did not apologise for his bad language. Sophy’s eyebrows shot up - not that she was a stranger to such forceful language, but Frederick was usually careful not to employ it around her - and she stopped with her knife in midair, toast half-buttered.

  
“Aye, and so it is,” the Admiral agreed, unencumbered by these reflections, and occupied with the coffee pot. “Comings and goings at all hours of the day and night, and none of the common, ordinary noises one hears aboard ship. I am only grateful we may return to Kellynch soon enough.”

A great deal happened in Camden Place all at once, or so Frederick understood from an ill-timed visit to the Musgroves’ lodgings. Mary Musgrove was having a nervous spasm, Charles and Mr Musgrove were backed into a corner and looking confused, and all the women were running around trying to restore Mary Musgrove to sense before she went off in a swoon. 

Mary Musgrove went off in a swoon.

This was at least much quieter, and Frederick was able to get Charles by himself and find out what had happened. It transpired that, in the course of the previous twenty-four hours, Mr Elliot had proposed to Anne (and been refused), Benwick had proposed to Anne (and been accepted), Mr Elliot had proposed to Miss Elizabeth Elliot (who had learned of his previous proposal to Anne from Mrs Clay and therefore threw both a teapot and an unusually well-justified tantrum), and Mr Elliot had run off with Mrs Clay (in broad daylight, so that it was now known to half of Bath).

Frederick leaned heavily against a wall and blinked at Charles very hard.

“I know,” Charles said, misunderstanding. “It’s a, er, a great deal to take in.”

  
“What a disrupted household,” Frederick said. “My sister had formed the intention of calling, but -”

  
Charles gave him a very weary look. Not a clever man, Charles, but no fool either, and well acquainted with the shortcomings of his in-laws. “I would not advise it.”

“No,” Frederick said. He blinked again, and double-blinked, and searched for words. His tongue felt too thick and too dry in his mouth. “I suppose all that remains is for me to wish Benwick and Miss Elliot happy - indeed, the happiest of couples.” 

“Indeed,” Charles echoed, and added a suggestion: “And to avoid Camden Place.” 

The wedding took place in early summer: Sophy hosted the wedding breakfast, that Anne might be married from her home, and Frederick had the pleasure of seeing that his sister and the woman he esteemed above all others were good friends. They deserved such friends, as Benwick deserved such a wife, deserved such happiness. 

Every bite Frederick took tasted like ash. But the only real gifts he could give the bride and groom were, first, his smiling and amiable presence on the day of their wedding, and, second, the request to the Admiral which he had already made - to use his influence on behalf of James Benwick. He would need influence, to advance further in his profession; his success would be well-deserved, and would bring Anne the comfortable life she likewise deserved. As firm as her intention was to accompany Benwick onboard ship, on Sophy’s advice, Frederick knew from experience that many of the logistical evils which beset a naval family could be smoothed over with money. Anne and Benwick should have all the support he could offer them, however feeble.

Admiral Croft had expressed his willingness, indeed, his pleasure in doing such a thing. Frederick had expected nothing less.

Frederick thought his heart might be breaking. He smiled and smiled, talked agreeably with Lady Russell, avoided the furious Miss Elliot - two younger sisters married, and jilted for a plain, commonplace widow who had accepted a _carte blanche_ rather than a wedding ring - and renewed his acquaintance with the Musgroves. Louisa Musgrove was there, much quieter and more nervous than she had been; Frederick pitied her, hated himself for his part in her accident, and wondered with some secret unworthy part of him how he could ever have thought her Anne’s equal.

Anne, more lost to him than ever. Frederick found himself in the parlour after all Sophy’s guests had gone, trying to play a snatch of music Anne had once taught him, indulging in melancholy. The midsummer evening stretched out golden and painfully endless before him.

Footsteps; the door clicked shut. Frederick recognised his sister’s tread, and said nothing as she crossed the room to join him, and laid a hand on his shoulder. 

“Oh, Frederick,” she said. “Why did you not tell me?”

  
  
Frederick opened his mouth and closed it again.

“Nine years ago,” Sophy said, “the woman of whom you would not speak. It was Anne Elliot, wasn’t it?”

Frederick shut his eyes, and waited for Sophy to deduce, further, that he loved Anne still, that he and Anne had parted on poor terms, and that he had watched her fall in love with one of his dearest friends, and been powerless - as a friend - to say anything, to declare himself. How could he have ruined their happiness, or created an awkwardness that must have been insurmountable? For he had no reason to believe that her love had survived, and every reason to believe it had not, and no reason at all to blame her for that. After the way he had behaved - every ungracious word and act -

Frederick put his head in his hands. Sophy sat down next to him on the piano stool.

“I do not think there will be any wife for me,” he said, somewhat muffled. “I do not think - in nine years I have not met her equal, Sophy.”

“A few smiles,” Sophy quoted, “some compliments to the navy -?”

Frederick chuckled: it came out bitterly. “I have always been a lost man.”

Sophy put her arm around his neck, and pulled his head down to her shoulder, like they were children again and she could comfort him. “Oh, Frederick,” she repeated. 

Frederick closed his eyes very tight.


End file.
